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GTX1080 Not showing in Sierra 10.12.6

L

LEOMODE

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 14, 2009
565
57
Southern California
I have GTX680 Mac Edition by EVGA.
I installed the latest Nvidia driver from Sierra 10.12.6 as of Apr 18 2019.

I swapped and installed Nvidia GTX1080 Founder's Edition.
There is no boot screen but I can get into Mac OS since I know what button to press in that hard drive selection screen. However even after getting passed by the boot screen the Sierra login screen still does not appear and it's pitch black. I do the same thing with GTX680 and Sierra login screen will appear just fine (even when I blindfold myself in the boot screen with GTX680).

Am I missing something here? (I'm not asking about the boot screen, I'm asking about the Mac OS screen). Thanks.
 
Last edited:
LEOMODE said:
Am I missing something here?
Click to expand...

GTX 1080 FE is not "flashed" and the GTX 680 Mac Edition comes "flashed" from EVGA. GPU needs to be "flashed" to have boot screens. As long as the NVIDIA Web Drivers are installed, the GTX 1080 FE will work. Without NVIDIA Web Drivers, the GPU will not work at all.

Since you'll probably ask, there is no known way for general public to "flash" GTX 1080 FE successfully. There are 3rd parties that offer that service, but I am not linking them here. Search the forum or someone else will post.
 
LEOMODE said:
There is no boot screen but I can get into Mac OS since I know what button to press in that hard drive selection screen.
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean here. But if you mean “hold option to boot”, that won’t work with non flashed card. It’s not just nothing display, however, working in the background. But really not working (and will hang at there).
 
h9826790 said:
Not sure what you mean here. But if you mean “hold option to boot”, that won’t work with non flashed card. It’s not just nothing display, however, working in the background. But really not working (and will hang at there).
Click to expand...

I thought the option to choose hard drive to boot still exists, but just not visible because the card was not flashed? Then how do people boot up on Mac OS if they have Boot Camp? Do you have to boot manually to Mac OS from Boot Camp using Boot Camp Windows software?
 
LEOMODE said:
I thought the option to choose hard drive to boot still exists, but just not visible because the card was not flashed? Then how do people boot up on Mac OS if they have Boot Camp? Do you have to boot manually to Mac OS from Boot Camp using Boot Camp Windows software?
Click to expand...

No, that won’t work.

You can try, the keyboard Capslock key should not responsive (if you hold option to boot).

There are plenty other way to dual boot Windows. For Sierra, all you need is just select next boot drive in system preference (for legacy Windows). In Windows side, you have to install Bootcamp package to have that option.

Beside, you may use Bootchamp etc to do that.
 
bsbeamer said:
FileVault enabled or disabled? FileVault requires an EFI GPU by default.
Click to expand...

So it looked like FireVault was never enabled. So this is not an issue.

h9826790 said:
No, that won’t work.

You can try, the keyboard Capslock key should not responsive (if you hold option to boot).

There are plenty other way to dual boot Windows. For Sierra, all you need is just select next boot drive in system preference (for legacy Windows). In Windows side, you have to install Bootcamp package to have that option.

Beside, you may use Bootchamp etc to do that.
Click to expand...

I installed Boot Camp for Windows, tried to boot from there, didn't work. It looks like nothing that you recommended is working: 1) Trying to boot from Windows, 2) installing to the latest update.

I have Nvidia GTX1080 Founder's Edition, Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6(16G1918), and Nvidia's latest web driver 378.05.05.25f15 as of April 21 2019.

Mac OS Sierra login screen just doesn't come out at all. Are you guys sure that the Nvidia web driver is compatible with GTX1080? Can anyone chime in and let me know if anyone was successful in seeing Mac OS Sierra screen with non-flashed GTX1080?

I'm also thinking if I swap the card out to GTX1080 to boot into Mac OS Sierra, maybe it's forcing it to boot from OS X Default Graphics Driver instead of Nvidia web driver? Does anyone how I can change that? When I use GTX680 it boots from web driver.
 
LEOMODE said:
So it looked like FireVault was never enabled. So this is not an issue.



I installed Boot Camp for Windows, tried to boot from there, didn't work. It looks like nothing that you recommended is working: 1) Trying to boot from Windows, 2) installing to the latest update.

I have Nvidia GTX1080 Founder's Edition, Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6(16G1918), and Nvidia's latest web driver 378.05.05.25f15 as of April 21 2019.

Mac OS Sierra login screen just doesn't come out at all. Are you guys sure that the Nvidia web driver is compatible with GTX1080? Can anyone chime in and let me know if anyone was successful in seeing Mac OS Sierra screen with non-flashed GTX1080?

I'm also thinking if I swap the card out to GTX1080 to boot into Mac OS Sierra, maybe it's forcing it to boot from OS X Default Graphics Driver instead of Nvidia web driver? Does anyone how I can change that? When I use GTX680 it boots from web driver.
Click to expand...
Did you ever tried installing 10.13.6 on another disk and checking if you can get the GTX 1080 to work? If you can't get it working with High Sierra, you could have the same NVRAM corruption problem that makes Titan cards to not work and it's not cleaned with clear NVRAM procedure.
 
tsialex said:
Did you ever tried installing 10.13.6 on another disk and checking if you can get the GTX 1080 to work? If you can't get it working with High Sierra, you could have the same NVRAM corruption problem that makes Titan cards to not work and it's not cleaned with clear NVRAM procedure.
Click to expand...

No I haven’t tried installing 10.13.6. I only have Mojave available to upgrade. How can I clean the NVRAM?
 
tsialex said:
This is the Apple Support page where you can get the link for the 10.13.6 Mac App Store Installer


The only way to resolve the TITAN problem is with a BootROM reconstruction (not a end-user procedure), test High Sierra first before.
Click to expand...

Dude tsialex, you're man! Resetting PVRAM worked! Thanks a lot!

So this is the wrap-up for anyone who may go through the same stage as me.


1) Use your flashed VGA (in my case GTX680 Mac Edition).
2) Download the latest Nvidia web driver.
3) Make sure the driver is set for Nvidia web driver.
4) Swap your card.
5) Make sure to Reset PVRAM (After you power it on, press Option+Command+P+R).
6) Voila! You're now logged in. Or login with your password.

As h9826790 says, I can't access the Mac OS boot up screen with my keyboard (i.e. using Option to choose boot up drive). So the only way for me was to use Boot Camp Windows program to boot into Mac OS, or use Bootchamp or Mac Boot Camp to boot into Windows.

This is awesome, thanks!
 
LEOMODE said:
Dude tsialex, you're man! Resetting PVRAM worked! Thanks a lot!

So this is the wrap-up for anyone who may go through the same stage as me.


1) Use your flashed VGA (in my case GTX680 Mac Edition).
2) Download the latest Nvidia web driver.
3) Make sure the driver is set for Nvidia web driver.
4) Swap your card.
5) Make sure to Reset PVRAM (After you power it on, press Option+Command+P+R).
6) Voila! You're now logged in. Or login with your password.

As h9826790 says, I can't access the Mac OS boot up screen with my keyboard (i.e. using Option to choose boot up drive). So the only way for me was to use Boot Camp Windows program to boot into Mac OS, or use Bootchamp or Mac Boot Camp to boot into Windows.

This is awesome, thanks!
Click to expand...
Since the simple clear NVRAM got your GTX 1080 working, you don't have the TITAN problem. If you don't need Sierra for some app that requires it, upgrade to High Sierra, GTX 1080 works much better with 10.13.6.
 
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tsialex said:
Since the simple clear NVRAM got your GTX 1080 working, you don't have the TITAN problem. If you don't need Sierra for some app that requires it, upgrade to High Sierra, GTX 1080 works much better with 10.13.6.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I was just refraining from High Sierra just because I was told the file system would change, although h9826790 said I can install without changing the file system. May I know what else is really better other than GTX1080 working better on 10.13.6? I don't use Mac OS as much (just web surfing, checking email, possibly iMovie to edit videos), but nothing else really. I am actually hoping to upgrade to Mojave because of Dark Mode but I see that Mojave doesn't work with GTX1080 at the moment.

Any suggestion?
 
LEOMODE said:
Thanks for the suggestion. I was just refraining from High Sierra just because I was told the file system would change, although h9826790 said I can install without changing the file system. May I know what else is really better other than GTX1080 working better on 10.13.6? I don't use Mac OS as much (just web surfing, checking email, possibly iMovie to edit videos), but nothing else really. I am actually hoping to upgrade to Mojave because of Dark Mode but I see that Mojave doesn't work with GTX1080 at the moment.

Any suggestion?
Click to expand...
MP5,1 with Sierra is vulnerable to Meltdown/Spectre attacks, you don't need more motives than that. Anyway, you can still install High Sierra with HFS+, using startosinstall advance options. startosinstall need SIP to be disabled at time of install to install High Sierra with HFS+.

NVIDIA don't provide web drivers for Mojave and seems that this will not be resolved any time soon.

You will need to upgrade your firmware to run 10.13.6, read the part of MP51.0089.B00 here MP5,1: What you have to do to upgrade to Mojave.
 
tsialex said:
MP5,1 with Sierra is vulnerable to Meltdown/Spectre attacks, you don't need more motives than that. Anyway, you can still install High Sierra with HFS+, using startosinstall advance options. startosinstall need SIP to be disabled at time of install to install High Sierra with HFS+.

NVIDIA don't provide web drivers for Mojave and seems that this will not be resolved any time soon.
Click to expand...

Gotcha. That sucks that Nvidia is not supporting Mojave when they're supporting Sierra and High Sierra for no benefit.
I will have to search for some options on how I can install High Sierra properly then.

One last question is: Is having the new file system better than sticking with the old system? I don't plan to downgrade anything if I don't need to.

Thanks so much for your help man!
 
LEOMODE said:
So it looked like FireVault was never enabled. So this is not an issue.



I installed Boot Camp for Windows, tried to boot from there, didn't work. It looks like nothing that you recommended is working: 1) Trying to boot from Windows, 2) installing to the latest update.

I have Nvidia GTX1080 Founder's Edition, Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6(16G1918), and Nvidia's latest web driver 378.05.05.25f15 as of April 21 2019.

Mac OS Sierra login screen just doesn't come out at all. Are you guys sure that the Nvidia web driver is compatible with GTX1080? Can anyone chime in and let me know if anyone was successful in seeing Mac OS Sierra screen with non-flashed GTX1080?

I'm also thinking if I swap the card out to GTX1080 to boot into Mac OS Sierra, maybe it's forcing it to boot from OS X Default Graphics Driver instead of Nvidia web driver? Does anyone how I can change that? When I use GTX680 it boots from web driver.
Click to expand...

There is no macOS option in Windows Bootcamp?
Bootcamp 6.1.PNG


And I never say that install bootcamp on the Windows side can fix the GTX1080 issue.

I was answering your question about how to switch between OS.

If the macOS side isn't working yet (e.g. nothing display through the GTX1080), you have to fix that in macOS side order to dual boot properly.
 
h9826790 said:
There is no macOS option in Windows Bootcamp?
View attachment 833257

And I never say that install bootcamp on the Windows side can fix the GTX1080 issue.

I was answering your question about how to switch between OS.

If the macOS side isn't working yet (e.g. nothing display through the GTX1080), you have to fix that in macOS side order to dual boot properly.
Click to expand...

There was an option in Windows Boot Camp like yours.
Although you never said to install Boot Camp on Windows side to fix the GTX1080, I still had to install that because that is the only way for me to switch from Windows to Mac OS back to Windows.

It was NVRAM which fixed the issue ultimately. I didn't do anything else other than installing Boot Camp for Windows.
 
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LEOMODE said:
There was an option in Windows Boot Camp like yours.
Although you never said to install Boot Camp on Windows side to fix the GTX1080, I still had to install that because that is the only way for me to switch from Windows to Mac OS back to Windows.

It was NVRAM which fixed the issue ultimately. I didn't do anything else other than installing Boot Camp for Windows.
Click to expand...

Happy to hear that your problem is now fixed.

So, with Bootcamp apps, you can now switch between OS without boot screen (it's faster than holding option during boot anyway).
 
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